Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday accused President Obama of seeking to “imtimidate” and “browbeat” the Supreme Court into upholding his health care reform law.
The senator is capitalizing on conservative pushback against Obama’s remarks Monday, in which he argued the Affordable Care Act is backed by longstanding precedent and tacitly warned the court to refrain from “judicial activism.”
McConnell’s full statement:
“Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare’s unprecedented mandate on the American people, elected leaders have an obligation to protect our system of checks and balances. The President, more than anyone else, has an obligation to uphold the legitimacy of our judicial system. But his remarks on the Court reflect not only an attempt to influence the outcome, but a preview of Democrat attacks to come if they don’t get their way.
“Only someone who would browbeat the Court during the State of the Union, and whose administration stifled speech during the health care debate, would try to intimidate the Court while it’s deliberating one of the most consequential cases of our time. This president’s attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court falls well beyond distasteful politics; it demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for our system of checks and balances.”
